St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-01-29

!
up system Of theology go TO the bottom
! while you come in on a spllntered spar.
''Some on broken pieces Of the ship"
You may get all your difficulties settled
as Garibaldi, the magnetic Italian, got his
gardens made. When the war between
| Austria and Sardinia broke out he was liv-
! ing at Caprera, a very rough and uncult-
ured island home. But he went forth with
! his sword to achieve the liberation of Naples
and Sicily, and gave 100000 people free
government under Victor Emanuel. Carl
baldi, after being absent two years from
| Caprera, returned and, when he ap-
preached it, he found that his home had by
Victor Emanuel, as a surprise, been Eden
lied. Trimmed shrubbery had taken the
place of thorny thickets, gardens the place
of barrenness, and the old rookery in which
he once lived had given way to pict-
ured mansion where he lived in comfort
the rest of his days And l tell you if you
will come and enlist under the banner OF
our Victor Emanuel, and follow Him
| through thick and thin, and fight His bat
ties and endure His sacrifices, you will find
after awhile that He has changed your
heart from jungle of thorny skeptlclsms
into a garden all a-blOom with luXurlant
JOY that you have never dreamed OF. From
a tangled Caprera of sadness into para
disc of God
LIDO not know how your theological sys-
TEN went to pieces. 1t may be that your
parents started you with only one plank,
and you believe little or nothing. Or they
may have been too rigid or severe IN
religious discipline and cracked you over
the head with a psalm book. 1t may be
that some partner in business, who was
member of an evangelical church, played
on you trick that disguised you with re.
ligion. 1t may be that you have associates
who have talked against Christianity in
your presence until you are ''all at sea-"
and you dwell more on things you do not
believe than on things you do believe. You
are in one respect like Lord Nelson, when
signal was lifted that he wished to disre-
gard, and he put his sea glass to his blind
eye and said: II really do not see the sig
nal" o, my hearer, put this field glass of
the Gospel no longer to your blind eye and
say l can not see, but put it to your other
eye, the eye of faith, and you will see
Christ, and He is all you need to see.
If you can believe nothing else, you GER
tainly believe in vicariOus suffering, for
you see it almost every day in some shape
Last month the steamship Knickerbocker,
of the Cromwell line, running between
New Orleans and here, was in a great
storm, and the captain and crew saw the
schooner Mary D. Cranmer in distress.
The weather cold, the waves mountain
high, the first officer of the steamship and
four men put out in a life-boat to save the
crew of the schooner, and reached the YES
sci and towed it out of danger, the wind
shifting so that the schooner was saved.
But the five men of the steamship coming
back, their boat capsized, yet righted
again and came on, the sail
ors coated with Ice. The boat
capsized again, and three times upset and
was righted, and line was thrown the
poor fellows, but their hands and arms
were frozen so they could not grasp it, and
great wave rolled over them, and they
went down, never to rise till the sea gives
up its dead. Appreciate that heroism and
self-sacrifice of the brave fellows we all
can, and can we not appreciate the Christ
who put out in a more biting cold and into
more overwhelming surge to bring US
out Of Infinite peril into everlasting safetyl
The wave of human hate rolled over Him
on one side, and the wave of hellish fury
rolled over Him on the other side. Oh, the
thickness of the night and the thunder of
the tempest into which Christ plunged for
our rescue!
Come In on that one narrow beam, the
beam of the cross. Let all else go and
cling to that. Put that under you, and
with the earnestness of swimmer strug-
Cling for his life put out for the shore.
There is a great warm fire of welcome
already built and already many, who were
as far out as you are, are standing in its
genial and Heavenly glow. The angels of
Gods rescue are wading out into the surf
to clutch your hand, and they know how
exhausted you are, and all the redeemed
prodlgals of Heaven are ON the bench with
new white robes to clothe all those who
come in on broken pieces of the ship.
My sympathies are for such all the more
because was naturally skeptical, disposed
to question every thing about this life and
the next, and was in danger of being furth-
er out to sea than any of the two hundred
and seventy-six in the Mediterranean
breakers, and I was sometimes the annoy
ance of my theological professor because |
asked so many questions. But I came in |
on a plank l knew Christ was the Saviour
OF sinners, and that I was a sinner, and |
got ashore and do not propose to go out |
on that sea again. I have not for thir-
ty minutes discussed the controverted |
points Of theology in thirty years. And |
during the rest of my life do not propose |
to discuss them for thirty seconds.
I would rather, in mud scow, try to
weather the worst cyclone that ever swept |
up from the caribbean than risk my i'm
mortal soul in useless and perilous discus
sions in which some of my brethren in the
ministry are indulging. They remind me
of a company of sailors standing on Rams
gate pier head, from which the life-boats
are usually launched, and coolly discussing
the different style of oar-locks and how
deep boat ought to set in the water while
a hurricane was in full blast and there
are three steamers crowded with passen-
gers going to pieces in the offing. An old tar,
the muscles of his face working with nerv-
GUS excitement, cries out: This is no time
to discuss such things Man the life-boat
Who will volunteer? Out with her into
the surf! Pull my lads, pull for the wreckl
Ha! ha! now we have them. Lift them in
ho ho+to Of +lo |